The museum's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will display 120 masterpieces of Indian sculpture and paintings with pieces that date as far back as the third century to the early 20th century. Temple sculptures, devotional icons, illustrated manuscripts, as well as colonial and early modern photographs, books, and films aim to shed light on the 2,000-year old practice.

To build the collection, Debra Diamond, curator of South Asian Art, gathered pieces from 25 museums and private collections in India, Europe, and the U.S.

Highlights include an installation of three monumental stone yogini goddesses from a 10th century Chola temple, ten folios from the first illustrated compilation of asanas made for a Mughal emperor in 1602, and the first film ever produced about India, Thomas Edison's "Hindoo Fakir" (1906).

Some of the potential programming includes free yoga classes within the exhibit, much like MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum of Art have done in the past.